Self-love is caring for yourself at a physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual level. When you prioritize a self-loving routine, you are prioritizing things that fuel yourself and your well-being. For everyone, this routine can range from a bubble bath to a workout routine. Something that is often overlooked is focusing on nutrition and a healthy relationship with food.
Nutrition from a Self-Love Perspective
A self-love approach toward nutritional and behavioral choices is based on the idea that we love ourselves. Taking the time to prioritize nutrition and a healthy lifestyle becomes inspiring. Rather than the idea of self-love being selfish, this is something that should make you feel proud.
Instead of relying on the scale, fad diets, unhealthy body standards, and excessive workout practices, positive and sustainable nutrition goals often include:
- Focusing on the benefits of healthy and whole foods
- Knowing your why and tapping into that vision for motivation
- Pausing and utilizing mindfulness at mealtimes
- Retaining your mind to love what loves you back.
This approach to nutrition should enable a person to develop positive images of health and happiness. Rather than focusing on goals that may be overwhelming and appear unrealistic, these smaller goals can increase your motivation and result in a more positive challenge.
Applying a self-loving approach through nutrition is key for a person to exercise a healthy relationship with themselves and with food. When you begin to incorporate nutrition into your self-care routine, your body can use those nutrients to heal, become stronger, and empower you to feel better.
Mindfulness and Self-Care
It may be common knowledge that you’re only going to feel as good as the foods you eat. But the foods you eat have a strong impact on your mental and emotional health. Focusing on improving your nutrition will not only change your health for the better, it will also improve your overall well-being.
Self-care requires complete mindfulness of your physical, emotional, and mental needs in order to be effective. This means, when you are focusing on nutrition, mindfulness is important. Being mindful of how the foods you eat are affecting your overall health and well-being will provide you with an understanding of what foods make you feel good.
As we become more aware of our eating habits, we are able to take steps in encouraging ourselves to prioritize nutritious foods. Nutrition is the most basic level of self-care. When you add mindfulness into the food choices you make and focus on adding in nutrients that will serve your body well, you take the basic level of self-care up a notch and turn it into a self-love approach.
Ways to Implement Self-love NutritionThere are simple steps you can add into your daily routine that can help you incorporate a self-loving approach to nutrition.
Stick to the basics.
Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many changes at once. Starting small and simple can help create a sustainable lifestyle change that is more likely to give you the results you’re looking for. Look for habits that work for you and your lifestyle.
Schedule time into your routine.
In order to make this a priority, it’s important to start with an active plan. Add a plan in your daily schedule and create a routine with them. Prioritizing a schedule will help make it sustainable and result in a lifestyle change.
Be conscious of how these changes make you feel.
Becoming mindful of what changes your making, how they affect you mentally and physically, and what the outcomes are will be beneficial. When you’re mindful of these changes, you are able to reconnect with yourself on a higher level. This also allows you to truly focus on the benefits of these changes, which will increase your motivation.
Be flexible with food choices.
Choose foods that not only will fuel your body but will also fuel your mood. Don’t become so strict with yourself by only eating foods that you think will give you benefits while sacrificing taste. Giving yourself the freedom to have variety in foods takes away the pressure and guilt if you enjoy something you like.
Eat foods you love with the people you love.
There is more to food than just the nutrients it provides. Food brings people together and creates memories, while also nourishing our bodies. Enjoying the food you love with the people you love is the highest approach to self-love nutrition.
